


Squiredom

by NightsMistress



Category: Protector of the Small - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 07:59:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5997898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightsMistress/pseuds/NightsMistress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alanna wants a squire. Neal is pretty sure it shouldn't be him, but unfortunately no one is listening to what he has to say on that front.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Squiredom

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thisisthemorning](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisisthemorning/gifts).



His father had told him to attend at a particular waiting room at two candlemarks before midday, and right on time Neal was knocking on the door. He arrived a few minutes early, using the opportunity to calm himself before walking in. First impressions mattered, and as little interest as he had in being a squire, it was a necessary step toward becoming a knight.

He pushed open the door when his father commanded him in, and stood in the doorway. His father was there, but with him was an unexpected companion: a short woman with red hair and stunningly purple eyes who studied him in frank appraisal. Neal had last seen her in armor, but he would recognize her anywhere. Anyone in Tortall would recognize Alanna of Pirate’s Swoop and Olau, Champion of the Realm.

“Oh,” Neal said, startled. “Are you busy? I can come back.” 

“Come in and close the door,” his father said. Neal closed the door behind him and sat down in the third chair in the room.

“What’s going on?” he asked. “Why all the secrecy?”

“Queenscove,” Alanna said. “Your father’s told me you need a knight, and Jon agreed. Will you be my squire?”

 _You’ve got to be kidding,_ Neal thought blankly. Though, if it was a joke, it was in terribly poor taste. 

“I can’t be your squire,” Neal blurted out. “You must be mistaken. Maybe you got hit on the head, because I don’t look _anything_ like Kel. She’s over at the practice courts, I can go get her if you wait.”

“I know who you are,” Alanna said impatiently. “Here.” She rolled up a sleeve of her tunic to expose a brilliantly purple-black bruise blossoming on her forearm. “Show me what you can do with this.”

Neal looked at it, and at Alanna, skeptically. Then he turned to his father. “Are you sure she hasn’t been hit on the head? Because I’m getting more and more convinced she’s concussed.”

“You’re wasting time, Queenscove.” Alanna’s voice brooked no argument.

He was. He really didn’t want to use his Gift on the only knight knew to be as equally talented with the sword as her healing Gift. It felt like a trap, and one that he was bound to fall into. Still, it was a command from the Champion of the Realm, and so Neal brought up his Gift and started to heal her bruise. It was bone deep, suggesting that whoever struck her had been both very lucky and very determined … or perhaps terrified. He assumed he would be terrified too, if he was facing Alanna’s blade, even in training.

“You’re right, Baird,” Alanna said. “He is wasting his Gift.”

“That’s why I asked you,” Neal’s father replied. “You’re the only one I could ask to do this.”

“That’s not fair and you know it,” Alanna said without heat. “You knew I’d have to train him after seeing this. He’s not as bad as I was, but the realm needs him to be able to use all of his talents.”

Neal felt peculiarly affronted by the frank discussion taking place, even if he was admittedly taking an inordinate amount of time to heal the Champion’s bruise. Had he continued on with his training as a healer, he would have been able to do it effortlessly. Instead, he was out of breath as the bruise faded to a sickly yellow, and then to nothing. He took a breath to steady himself and looked up from Alanna’s arm into her face.

“Now, are you _sure_ you don’t want me to go get Kel?” Alanna’s expression didn’t suggest that she would, in fact, like him to go get Kel, and so Neal plunged on headlessly. “Really, I’m going to be a terrible squire for you. I don’t like swordplay, and I definitely don’t like riding, and I’m rubbish at getting up in the mornings. We’re going to hate each other by the end of the four years.”

“Is he always like this?” Alanna asked, exchanging a look with his father.

“Yes,” his father replied. “Neal, stop talking.”

Neal stopped talking. Now that he wasn’t talking, he was aware of the sick, awful weight in his stomach that threatened to swallow him whole. He had been afraid of not being chosen as someone’s squire, of course, and that fear had intensified as he was passed over. Being chosen was meant to be an honor, and one that his brothers would have loved to have. Of course, they weren’t here, and that was why Neal was trying to become a knight rather than a healer. As burdens went, it was one that he had assumed and was almost comfortable with. 

But he didn’t want his progress toward knighthood to be at Kel’s expense.

Alanna’s expression was wryly sympathetic. “I know. I wanted to be her knight too. But she’s going to be looked after. She’s not going to be left behind a desk. What a waste that would have been!”

“Why can’t it be you though?”

“The idiots at court would think that I magicked her succeeding somehow,” Alanna said, scowling. “That she hadn’t earned it.”

“Everyone who knows her knows that’s not true,” Neal protested. “Everyone knows that she’s that good.”

“People still talk,” his father said. “You know that, Nealan. It wouldn’t be fair.”

“I know, and it’s stupid,” Neal replied. He sighed. “Can you at least tell me who will be squiring her?”

“You’ll have to ask her yourself,” Alanna said. “She’ll know soon enough.”

“When will that be?” The problem with this waiting room, Neal decided, was that it didn’t have anything convenient for him to look at that wasn’t Alanna or his father. In fact, the only things in this room were that the only things in it were the three chairs and two very important people seated in them, looking at him intently and expecting to say yes to a proposition that under other circumstances he would have been delighted to accept. 

Perhaps that had been his father’s plan. Neal had to concede the effectiveness of it. 

“Soon,” Alanna said. “But you haven’t answered me yet, Queenscove. Will you be my squire? You need training in your Gift, and your father convinced me that I was the only one who can do it.”

“I suppose, as long as Kel’s looked after,” Neal said slowly. He felt terribly guilty for agreeing. He knew how much being chosen by Alanna would have meant to Kel. He also knew that he desperately needed training in his Gift, training he would have gotten had he not cut his training short to become a page. He couldn’t argue that Tortall didn’t need knights with healing Gifts. There would have been fewer deaths in the Immortals War if there had been.

Also, Gift will out. He knew that. He knew he had to learn how to use it properly, or it would use him.

“I accept,” he said heavily. “Thank you, Lady Alanna.”

He knew that he had to accept the offer; it was the best offer he could hope for and one that would finally give him the training he hungered for. He just hoped that whoever was going to squire Kel would come forward soon. Kel was almost too good at going impassive when she was hurt, but Neal knew that the inevitable court gossip about the Champion’s squire would hurt her.


End file.
